Before she met Teacher Su Wen, Natsume Chie perhaps had never imagined that these things would prove useful more than a decade later.
She had only regarded those blueprints as mementos left behind by an old engineer who had spent his entire life working.
The girl spoke wistfully:
"That camphor wood chest is still on the second shelf on the left side of the storage room.
Besides those, it also contains a badly worn tin toy—a Miniature Steam Locomotive.
Because it was well maintained, the meshing gears can still turn."
When she was little, she had always loved hugging it as she followed behind her grandfather, listening to the creaking scrape of tin mixed with the clanging of old streetcars passing through Tokyo, forming the clearest background sound in her memories.
Without realizing it, the girl's memories slipped into the next scene:
["Chie, look at this gear.
Isn't it beautiful?
It clearly isn't time for it to retire yet."
It was a Dilapidated Factory piled high with old mechanical parts. The old man happily held up a component.
As for his excitement, the little girl nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, yes. Just like you, it's not time for retirement yet."
Rust-covered bearings, broken Drive Shafts, dust-coated instrument panels—the air was thick with the mingled scent of rust and Machine Oil, along with the faint fishy smell of Canal Water.
Looking at the scene in her memory, little Chie quietly said:
"This is Grandfather's favorite place to come."
Tsukishima, Tokyo, ten years ago.
The warehouses along the canal had yet to be converted into artsy cafés. Most were abandoned factory sites, piled with machinery discarded during Tokyo's wave of industrialization.
Before he left, Natsume Chie remembered her grandfather always saying that beneath those cold metals lay the warmth of civilization.
"Gears have